Office Secret Santa Rules?

Question

I need rules for planning an Office Secret Santa. I am talking of the ritual of leaving someone surprise gifts for like 12 days or something. NOT THE OLD FASHINONED POLYANNA!I have heard of people playing this around the holidays, but never paid much attention to how exactly it goes. If anyone has some guidelines... I could really use them!
Some things I'd find helpful are:
Spending limits
When to start
How many days/gifts per day
When to reveal identities
etc., etc., etc.

THANKS A BUNCH!!

Answer 1

This was what we did at my school for the faculty and staff members:
First, we were asked to tell if we wanted to participate. The ones who did had their names written down on slips of paper and someone in charge came around with a basket full of the names for us to pick our giftee. We were also given a list in the form of a little poem that told what kind of gift to give each day.
For 4 days before the party, we gave something sweet, something funny, something paper, and something red and green. Usually people left the gifts in the mailboxes in the workroom, but some would inconspicuously leave them on a doorknob or our desks, or in the little mailbox outside our rooms. We spent just a few dollars on each of these. Then on the party day, we met in the library, where a tree was set up. All the wrapped gifts, which were slightly "bigger" gifts, were placed under the tree. Someone then passed out all the gifts and the secret santa's name was either on the tag or inside the gift. It was so much fun! Especially trying to keep the person from finding out who their Santa was.
My Santa had a great idea and left me a short questionaire about my likes or sizes or whatever (what's your favorite restaurant? do you collect anything? favorite candy?) I'm going to do that this year......

Answer 2

Secret Santa Rules

Answer 3

This Site Might Help You.

RE:
Office Secret Santa Rules?
I need rules for planning an Office Secret Santa. I am talking of the ritual of leaving someone surprise gifts for like 12 days or something. NOT THE OLD FASHINONED POLYANNA!I have heard of people playing this around the holidays, but never paid much attention to how exactly it goes. If anyone has...

Answer 4

Try to strike up a conversation with him to find out what his other interests are and go from there. Observe the things he likes when you are around him. Does he drink coffee or have a favorite desert? Is there a special place he likes to go on his lunch hour? Does he like sports? Do you know what kind of music he listens to or bands he likes? Is he into computers or going on line? Does he like to read? Just asking those questions in case he may have other interests? The more ideas you have the more it will be easiest especially if you happen to come across something especially when you are looking around. If you look around at some pound stores in England (here in Canada we call them dollar stores) or any other discount place. I don't really know what kind of stores you have but discount places or warehouses is usually where you can find some really great deals at Christmas time especially if you have others on your Christmas list. You can find some great deals in discount stores. Since he is into motorcycles you could probably find a few things with a motorcycle on it. A Poster, Book, Pen, Coffee Mug, Key chain, any little gift item. A Gift Certificate is probably the easiest because you don't have to shop around. If you find a place he likes to go you can get him a gift certificate for food. Good luck with your Christmas shopping.

Answer 5

We do it every week between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Every week you must bring a lil something in for your person, there is usually 3 weeks because the last week we do the big gift and reveal. On the little gift it can be $1 gift. I am perfectly happy with a dove chocolate bar. The big gift is a $25 limit. I print out questions with one of them being ..Absolutely do not buy me ____________. Like favorite snack, resteraunt, things you collect. Then on the bottom of that I post 3 suggestions for the cheap gifts and 3 suggestions of the big gift. I collect them and go through them in case there is any questions. One year I was asking for a kichen spider so when we drew names I explained what a kitchen spider was. I also would email everyone a copy of everyone's list so if they lost it they wouldn't' give themselves away. We also made sure to be sneaky so no one figured out who had them. The first year they were reluctant but after they would start asking to draw names in July.

Answer 6

Yea plus that's a lot of effort. Unless you have a small office and everyone loves each other and everyone loves Christmas, it's likely that a bunch of people are annoyed with the prospect of buying and wrapping 12 extra gifts on top of what they already have to deal with at Christmas time, being buying and wrapping gifts for their friends and loved ones.

I would say the general office rule should be to keep it short, simple and inexpensive.

Answer 7

12 days thats way to long

depending on yalls last day of work i would do a max of 3 days and with each day a different price like day 3 should be $5, day 2 will be $10 and the last day can be like $15 and that is the day where you find out who you got

put names in a christmas stocking and have everyone draw...to make sure people get their person something i would get a notebook and write down the name of the person and next to it who they drew...you will know who everyone got

start 3 days before your last day of work before christmas break


in my office we are doing the drawing of the names today during our thanksgiving lunch and we are only doing one gift i am not sure of the spending limit but we will give the gifts during our christmas pot luck lunch

Answer 8

Our office doesn't do this because people break the rules and change them all the time- someone usually gets the short end somewhere. We do a grab bag in our office.

Answer 9

We have only done 5 days and a $5 limit per day, usually less. Reveal on the party day. This got boring and now we do a Yankee swap. Whole lot easier.